On July 2, 1937 at 0000 GMT, Earhart and Noonan took off
from Lae. Their intended destination was Howland Island, a tiny piece of
land a few miles long, 20 feet high, and 2, 556 miles away. Their last
positive position report and sighting were over the NukumanuIslands,
about 800 miles into the flight. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter USCGC Itasca
was on station near Howland, assigned on short notice to communicate with
Earhart's plane and guide her to the island once she arrived in the vicinity.
But it soon became evident that Earhart and Noonan had little practical
knowledge of the use of radio navigation. The frequencies Earhart was using
were not well suited to direction finding (in fact, she had left behind
the lower-frequency reception and transmission equipment which might have
enabled Itasca to locate her), and the reception quality of her transmissions
was poor.

After six hours of frustrating attempts at two-way communications, contact
was lost. A coordinated search by the Navy and Coast Guard was organized
and no physical evidence of the flyers or their plane was ever found. Earhart
and Noonan's fate has been the subject of many rumors and allegations which
were never substantiated. Modern analysis indicates that after passing
the Nukumanu Islands, Earhart began to vector off course, unwittingly heading
for a point about 100 miles NNW of Howland. A few hours before their
estimated arrival time Noonan calculated a "sun line," but without a successful,
radio-frequency range calculation, a precise "fix" on the plane's location
could not be established. Researchers generally believe that the plane
ran out of fuel and that Earhart and Noonan perished at sea.